Working things out?

I dreamed about Mum for the first time (that I can recall) the night before last.
It was strange because I don't feel there was a sense of good or bad about the dream, I just woke up feeling sad because I was thinking about her, but it wasn't a sad dream as such.
I guess my brain is slowly starting to sort through things.  I do feel at times like I have a spot of PTSD.  I get little flashbacks, particularly to that most awful time when we first realised something was wrong, and she was in such a mess...
But I'm trying to counter that with happy memories.  I found some old photos last night, it's hard to spend too long looking at them but I love to see her smiling face.

Leaving some things behind

I aren't ending this blog completely.  But I felt that as it had become some sort of diary of Mum's brain tumour and my efforts to cope with it, that maybe it was time to reboot myself with a new blog and leave this as a sort of memento - a message in a bottle? - as a record of that time. 
This doesn't mean I won't still post here because I'm still dealing with it, and will be for some time to come.
But a freshness of perspective is needed and you can find me being more - cheerful? Day-to-day? Philosophical? Mundane?! - over at Wordpress.  Still KizzieDid and Kizzie KizzieDidNot.

Gone

She is gone...and the outbreath is what hurts.  I've been holding my breath these past three months, now it hurts too much to breathe out.

Her pain is over, thank all that can be thanked. 

I went to see her in the chapel of rest.  Rather wish I hadn't.  The face reverts to a babylike state.

Thhis really hurts and I daren't let it burst out ... I don't want to break...

I miss you, Mum.

The progress of Kizzie

It's abundantly clear that my blog has been dominated lately by thoughts and outpourings on my mother's brain tumour.  This is frankly not lighthearted, entertaining stuff.  Although reading some of it back, even I can see a bit of a journey in progress.  It's been a strange few months - really has been a whirlwind, wherein I feel almost to be have been standing still in the centre (not inactive - I've been incredibly productive, counter to the flow) but time has moved on without me consciously realising it.  I mean, it's June, for frak's sake.

So where am I at the moment?

Fragile, of course.  If I like to feel I'm balanced on a nice flat plateau of stability, right now I'm en pointe on the top of a windy tor, but nonetheless - hoping I'm not jinxing myself - I'm relatively balanced.  I know I have a lot of 'stuff' going on in my head - some of it scares me, I'm not totally sure if I like the me that's in there, or even if I'm scared that I do like her but know I shouldn't.  But, I'm also rationalising, breathing, keeping it real - reflective. 

I will be.

Not I will be okay, I will be fine, whatever... just, I will be.  And that's ok.

In time, maybe the collection of the journey through pain I'm undergoing might be of use / help to someone facing a similar battle.  Even if not, it helps me to be able to get it out in my favourite format, written form.

She sleeps so much now.  It's sad, because I'd like to talk to her more, but to be honest, the things I'd want to talk about might not be things she'd want to talk about.  She's not really, totally there anyway, as I've explained before.  There's a fraction of my Mum in there somewhere, enough to usually say she loves me if I say I love her, enough that she has not, yet at least, wondered particularly who I am or felt uneasy as if I'm a stranger.  She's been very relaxed with most strangers actually, the constant stream of carers, doctors, nurses, Macmillan care...yes, she knows a lot of them through her work, but even so, many are unknown.

We haven't always had a perfect relationship - we've fought, we've bickered - but 99% of the time, Mum's been my friend as well as my Mum.  She supports me, even when the decisions I make might be ones you'd expect disapproval of.

The key thing she did was she told me that she didn't mind what I did in life, so long as I was happy.  I respect and appreciate that. 

I'm going to miss her incredibly, forever, and always.  But I have so much of her in my heart, in my spirit.  So I comfort myself in thinking that though I'll lose the chance to speak directly (well, I've already lost that) I know I have the sense of her in my soul. 

I'll try to talk about something else on here in the future.  But this is important stuff, to me.
 

'F**k it - the Ultimate Spiritual Way'...thoughts so far

I was given this book last week as a birthday present, but more, I think, as a nod to the hard time I am going through in my life right now.


What's most interesting, on a personal level, is that as I read, I realise that much of this is akin to my own personal philosophy / mantras / irreverent humour regarding religion.  It's just that I had forgotten much of it along the way, the last few years being the bitches they have been...so it's like returning to stuff and going, yeah, I know, I know...


I agree with much of the book.  Some things I do counter though.  Or find ironic.  My main thoughts:


p29: the section explaining how everyone comes to a crisis point in their lives, a crash, before they see the 'clear path'.  Well, fair enough.  And that leads some people on to write a spiritual / guidance tome.  Great.  So technically, having crashed myself back in 2009, am I qualified to write a book?
Actually, I probably am.  Probably was when I was 17, but didn't know it.  Still, perspective helps, in many things.


The diet section is not very convincing; I'm not into diets anyway, but there is much use of the words 'I bet if...' in this section.  Meaning J Parkin probably doesn't either.  Some of it makes sense, but it perhaps skates over some of the issues here.


Pages 84-85.  The concept of Jesus getting stoned, and the four gospels being prudes who re-write the tales and make the reduction to "Love one another as you love yourself' is hilariously good.  And the point about how it should be that you must love yourself first and then you can love everyone else, because otherwise you miss a vital point - that if you hate yourself you can't love others as yourself - is profoundly deep and ridiculously simple.


Pages 48-49, all the stuff about energy - I have a scientific mind at times and I get this.  It makes sense.  Energy.  Transformation.  All good stuff.


What also entertained me was that before I read any of the book, I did the thing where you let it naturally drop at a page and see what it brings up.  What it landed on was pretty relevant for how my brain is working at the moment.  Then when I properly read the book, it actually suggests doing this anyway, as the bit you get will 'be what you most need'.  Spooky?  The cynical, suspicious side of me thinks the friend who bought me the book, having read it themselves, 'doctored' the book to mess with my head... well, it's an amusing idea.  


More thoughts may follow when I've finished the book... 

Memory

My memory sucks.  I need to get into the habit of writing shit down when I think of it, I get these really great or fun ideas, and and certain I'll remember.  Do I hell.  I had another song-lyric changing idea yesterday, can I remember now what song it was?  Pah.  My only possibly clue is I was listening to 90s radio, so well, pick a song from that decade... grrr. *slaps self in frustration*

Where It's At

I haven't yet been able to properly grieve for the fact that to all intents and purposes I've already lost my mum.  She's not the same lady I love so much, her body is a shell for a damaged brain.  I get glimpses of her now and then but in many ways that's even more heartbreaking.
The reason I'm not letting myself grieve for this yet is that I need to stay strong for her, to make sure that I make her as comfortable and as happy as possible for the all-too-brief time she has left.
There are other things I know are going to hit me over and over like a spring-loaded bullet train.  Any children I have will never meet her - they'll know of her, they'll know her through me and my siblings, especially I think through me and my baby bro - but they won't know her.  I won't have a mum there to support me with all the baby-pregnancy stuff.  It hurts me and it scares me shitless.
I won't have that person there who is proud of me, to cheer me on, to see me complete my degree studies or to see me acting, to see my plays performed or things I've directed; to share the moments when you just want your mum there.  My Dad's still around and God bless him, he is probably proud of me in his own way but doesn't know how to express it.
This isn't meant as a pity party.  It's just the stages I'm going through.  Grief that sticks in your throat like vomit when you aren't near a basin.  It ain't pretty.

When this is all done, I'll watch the episode of Buffy called The Body and cry my fucking heart out.

Pain and its methods

After the great, body-shaking, stomach-shattering grief of diagnosis, you kick into high gear.  I'm designated '4 of 5' - the second youngest sibling.  But I've kicked into high gear, organising the care rota (that my sister can't seem to stick to), kicking backsides to make sure the wreck of a house is shipshape, making a system for ensuring the four of us currently in this country pass on relevant information to each other to ensure the best care for mum.  

It wears you out, for sure.  It's a pain-numbing process, action over anger/fear/pain is an equation that will never quite add up. But it's the right thing to do.  Keep calm, carry on; fall apart later.

And yes, that is fine in theory.  I can hold myself together while my most important lady sees out her days in peace.  I can do it for her.  But understandably, the pain seeps out slowly somewhere, like a pus-filled wound.

I'm unable to think quite clearly.  I get angry.  I'm distracting myself with randomness, I'm avoiding the obvious addictions like alcohol (unlike, once again, my sister) and drugs, but cigarettes and sex are cravings that I can't quell.  I've become attention-seeking, and get irrationally upset when I don't get that attention.

Still, I think, overall, the bottle it up but drip-drip it out method is best; I'm lucky to have some wonderful supporters, who can spare me a few minutes each day to let me rant or moan, then move on to keeping positive.

But ultimately, I'm sat here waiting for the lady I love most in the world to leave me.  I don't want her to be in pain.  But the end of hers is only the flood barrier opening on mine.

Warrior

When this darkness takes your light,
Do not feel you’ve lost the fight.
Although you will have left us here,
To sleep forever, do not fear,
You’ll leave us with your greatest part,
Your loving, beloved, warrior’s heart.

I've been numb for weeks now.  Hearing that your mother has a terminal brain tumour and only has weeks to live is a shock, unsurprisingly.  You spend the first 24 hours or so screaming your tears, retching your guts out, passing out with the rawness of your heart.  Then you finally cry yourself to sleep.  You wake up, kick into high gear to make preparations for her to come home, so you don't have time to think anymore.
She comes home, and you are fine for a week or so.  Then you realise just how tired you all are, how hard it is to have to look after someone you love so deeply but who can't go the bathroom themselves and sometimes forgets who you are.  To see them in pain, to feel like they've become the child and you've become the parent.
You try to stay strong and calm because everyone else seems to not know what to do or is falling apart; you don't want to tell them that you don't know either and that you're falling apart in all sorts of little ways.  Your every instinct is telling you to just run away and hide and not come back.  You're angry and in pain and can understand why people turn to something - drugs, alcohol, religion - something, anything, strong enough to distract you from the pain.  From their pain.
Shit shit shit shit shit.

Contains some personal & sensitive themes - be warned.

Having baby thoughts on the brain at the moment, mainly due to recent Caesarian arrival of new nephew.  And now it's Mother's Day too...

Nephew arrived fine, pleased to say - bit jaundiced and a bit purple, but fine.
My own thoughts on having babies are compound fear and terror worthy of a Dario Argento movie.  But then, these come under one of my favourite subject headings, "things we do not like to talk about'.  And it sucks, frankly!  In modern day society people still hate to talk about miscarriage, stillbirth and the litany of things that can happen during pregnancy.  So how is one meant to overcome their fears?  It's taboo to talk about the child that never was...and from a family with a history of miscarriages and stillbirths I know how devastating it can be.  My fear is exacerbated because I have to wonder, does it run in the family or are other factors at play?  Because people don't tend to talk about it and there seems to be frighteningly little scientific knowledge about actual causes of miscarriage, I'm in the dark.
Suppose I need to talk to my Mum more about this.  But then it's hard to dig up the past.  From the things I do know about some of her experiences, stillbirth (back in the late 60's / early 70's) was shockingly dealt with.  I only know that somewhere my fourth brother is buried with an adult (this is what they did) and my mother was not even told where.  So as well as a nod to my ma on mother's day, here's a nod to Anthony.  Because one day I'd like to find where you are, for her.
This is a bit of a mixed up post.  But then that's how I feel about all things baby right now.

The year of constant upheaval

2011 was a strange year for me to say the least.  Having gotten married in Nov 2010, from Jan to March 2011 I was living on my own in Scarborough, several hundred miles away from my hubby who was still in Nottingham.  In that 3 months I inhabited two different homes, one rented with friends and one a lovely flat owned by my employers.  It was a top floor flat with sea views and jolly nice it was to live there over the summer.  Though I've never lived in flats before and never wish to again!  I like some space.  Finally in October me and the husband moved to a house, our third home in a year, but we're happy there.  Albeit that our neighbours are noisy c***s, but never mind.
Moving back to your home town after five years away might be viewed as a step backwards, but not to me.  Aside from missing the call of the sea, the countryside and castle, I was ready to be back amongst friends and family and couldn't pass up this job opportunity - probably the only job that would have brought me back, to be fair.  Lets' be honest, I'd kinda run away to some extent - this town had gotten way too small for me, and there were people I'd rather avoid, memories I'd prefer to leave buried. 
BUT...being back is going good.  I've even made NEW friends, which is a blessing, as I had half expected that old ones would fill my time.
Anyway, roll on summer - I fancy making some new memories with beach activity - it's been ages since one of my famed Summer Sports Days...

A writer without writing - my own worst critic

I have been an errant blogger - it's been a year since my last blog entry.
But apart from last year being one of the busiest and most uprooted / unsettled I've ever had (all in a good positive way) it was also the year that did actually kickstart my ass into writing again.

It's thanks mainly to a very cool bunch of people, who I had the most amazing luck to be in the right place at the right time with and spark off a catalyst of creativity.

Whilst I'm still my own worst critic when it comes to anything I do onstage or anything I write, I feel like a cork has been unpopped and I'm no longer a fraud.  I'm no longer calling myself a writer and not really writing.  I'm allowing myself to be seen and heard, scruitinised, whatever - but all in a very 'safe' environment with a group of likeminded folks whom I respect and adore.

They also let me give us all a stoopid name, that reflects our positivity and lack of taking ourselves seriously.  So here's to Bananadrama and to the flow of words on the page.

Feel like I've got my life back.  Of course, when the words flow, that's a whole other story...